Iran's Flagship Hardline Daily Slams Idea Of 'Interim' Nuclear Deal

Saeed Khatibzadeh was quoted by local media on Friday as saying that that lifting sanctions at once and verification of this step are among Iran’s conditions for the US return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA.

He added that if the US returns to the Vienna talks ready to accept these conditions, agreement can be reached quickly. The negotiations are set to restart on November 29 after a five-month suspension by Iran.

The previous six rounds of talks tried to resolve which US sanctions should be lifted and in what sequence.

Khatibzadeh went on to say that Tehran also wants guarantees that Washington would not withdraw from an agreement again, in reference to the decision by former US president Donald Trump in 2018 to abandon the JCPOA and impose sanctions on Iran.

In recent weeks, Iran has hardened its position, signaling that it wants the Vienna talks to resume with different priorities than when they were suspended in June.

French Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian on Friday warned that if the Vienna talks prove to be a “sham”, it means JCPOA is “empty” and devoid of value.

Friday Prayer Imams receive instructions from a central office under the supervision of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and often highlight issues that the Islamic Republic’s top leadership wants to send as a message to Iranians or foreign countries.

Haj Ali Akbari, who delivered the main sermon on Friday also urged Iran’s negotiators to ignore “excuses” by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA.

The IAEA, which conducts monitoring of Iran’s nuclear installations, issued reports this week criticizing Tehran’s lack of cooperation, days before the agency’s Board of Governors is scheduled to meet.

France on Thursday urged the IAEA board to send a “strong message” to Iran, which could mean a formal censure for its lack of cooperation.

Iran has recently hardened its position demanding that the United States lift all sanctions at once and time for the verification before Tehran makes any moves to return to the 2015 nuclear agreement known as JCPOA.

"The first check we will have to do is whether we are continuing the discussion where it left off in June with the previous Iranian administration," Jean-Yves Le Drian said in an interview with le Monde, referring to when negotiations resume on November 29 between Iran and world powers.

"If this discussion is a sham, then we will have to consider the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) empty."

On Thursday France had demanded actions against Iran after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued critical reports on Wednesday saying Tehran was impeding its nuclear monitoring on designated facilities.

Iran’s new hardline administration has delayed the resumption of the nuclear talks it suspended in June for five months and has continued adding to its stockpile of 20-percent and 60-percent enriched uranium. In recent weeks it has hardened its position demanding that the United States lift all its sanctions at once to make an agreement possible.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) 35-nation governing board is due to begin meeting on November 24 in Vienna, five days before talks are due to resume on reviving Iran's nuclear deal with global powers.

The IAEA has issued critical reports saying Tehran has not fully cooperated with its monitors, which could make it more difficult to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement known as JCPOA, under which Iran accepted curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

"As a responsible member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has always emphasized that the IAEA's reputation as a technical and specialized body of the United Nations must be free of any political conduct," said an Iranian Foreign Ministry statement in a twitter feed.

Iran has in the past made similar statements when it has felt a danger of being criticized or censured for lack of cooperation with the UN watchdog.

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre had said on Thursday that the watchdog's governing board should act, after agency reports highlighted issues over Tehran's nuclear program. Western nations say they fear it has military aims while Tehran insists it is purely peaceful.

According to IAEA reports on Wednesday, Iran had still not granted IAEA inspectors access it promised two months ago to re-install monitoring cameras at a workshop that was the site of apparent sabotage in June.

Legendre said Iran "must return without delay to fulfilling all its commitments and obligations to the IAEA, resume cooperation with the agency and return to full implementation" of the 2015 nuclear deal.

She did not clarify what she meant by a strong message. Diplomats have said it is unlikely Western powers would take action against Iran before the negotiations on reviving the nuclear accord resume.

Talks should resume between Iran and world powers in Vienna November 29.

Western powers scrapped plans in September for an IAEA board resolution rebuking Iran, after Tehran agreed to prolong monitoring of some nuclear activities and invited IAEA chief Rafael Grossi to Tehran for talks. Grossi is again due in Tehran ahead of the IAEA board meeting.

With reporting by Reuters

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre told reporters Tehran should “return without delay to fulfilling all its commitments and obligations…resume cooperation…and return to full implementation of the JCPOA.”

Talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, should resume between Iran and world powers in Vienna November 29.

This will be the first round of talks with emissaries of the new administration led by President Ebrahim Raisi (Raisi). The United States, which left the JCPOA in 2018 and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran, will take part indirectly, as it did before the talks lapsed in June.

Grossi In Tehran Next Tuesday

While the IAEA would monitor a revived JCPOA, its director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi has more immediate concerns. The IAEA has confirmed that Grossi will be in Tehran for meetings Tuesday with senior officials, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

Grossi has for two months requested such meetings to discuss current ‘temporary’ arrangements for IAEA access and what the agency says are questions left unanswered by Iran over past apparent nuclear activity in sites undeclared to the agency.

Grossi is keen to restore access to a manufacturing site in Karaj to service monitoring equipment, which Iran has not allowed despite a September 12 agreement.

The IAEA chief earlier this month told AP he was “flying in a heavily clouded sky.” The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Iran had resumed making parts for advanced centrifuges at Karaj, which the Journal said the IAEA had no knowledge of.

Irking France, as well as the two other European JCPOA signatories – Germany and the United Kingdom – and the US, were IAEA reports this week that inspectors had faced intrusive searches and that Iran had accumulated 17.7kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent, a jump from 10kg in under three months, and 113.8kg enriched to 20 percent, up from 84kg over the same period.

Under the JCPOA, Iran is allowed to enrich only to 3.67 percent. But since 2019, following US ‘maximum pressure,’ Tehran has gradually exceeded JCPOA limits, by using advanced centrifuges as well as by enriching increasingly close to the 90 percent regarded as ‘weapons grade.’

An interim nuclear agreement?

A further complication lies in reports of recent discussions over an interim agreement under which both the US and Iran would take steps towards a renewed JCPOA, the US by ‘allowing’ the unfreezing of Iranian assets currently held by third-parties in fear of punitive US action and Tehran by curbing some aspects of its nuclear program.

Axios news site reported Wednesday that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had raised the prospect of an interim deal with his Israel counterpart Eyal Hulata, after it had been suggested by a European state.

Tehran’s pronouncements on JCPOA revival have stressed its commitment to reviving the deal as agreed in July 2015 rather than seeking interim steps or modifying it. But the JCPOA was itself preceded by an interim agreement, the 2013 Joint Plan of Action, under which Iran froze parts of its nuclear program in return for reduced international sanctions.

An interim agreement could postpone the need for agreement on a crucial difficulty facing negotiators in Vienna during talks April-June, that of agreeing which US sanctions contravened the JCPOA. Reports suggested Iran argued that all sanctions imposed by the Trump administration – whether on ‘nuclear’ or ostensibly other grounds – would need to be lifted.